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UNDP's Evacuation of Jordan Building Confirmed by
UN, Unexplained by UNDP
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
October 7 -- The UN Development
Program has evacuated its staff from its building in Amman, Jordan due
to
danger. This information was gleened not from UNDP, which twice
declined to
confirm it, but rather from UN system Security chief David Veness.
Inner City
Press approached him Tuesday afternoon in the Economic and Social
Council
chamber and he acknowledged that UNDP had deemed its building unsafe,
and that
when UNDP unilaterally pulled out, it led to "noice" and push-back
from other UN agencies which felt they had not been consulted.
By contrast
to this candor, UNDP's spokesman issued a vague non-non-denial, and
then
refused to say more. First,
"We are not curtailing
operations. The delivery of programmes continues as normal in Jordan.
However,
we do from time, to take the necessary security precautions but they
have not
had an impact on our ability to do our work."
Then,
after
Inner City Press again asked for confirmation and description of the
change,
and where other agencies were informed, this:
"On Jordan, I will not get
into the details of security precautions. There are procedures in place
and
they are being followed."
Why
would
UNDP think that that it has or can be more secretive that the chief of
all UN
Security?
Ban and Dervis seated, consultation on safety not shown
It is
anticipated that the so-called accountability report about the bombing
of UN premises
in Algiers will be released on October 8, and that UNDP and its
Designated
Officer Marc de Bernis will figure prominently. Watch this site.
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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